Written On The Body

The narrator waits for an update of Louise’s medical condition, which Elgin had promised to send by March. When nothing arrives, the narrator tries “to take comfort from the flowers, from the steady budding of the trees” (141).

The narrator describes the spring festival held at the wine bar, which involves the employees dressing in green body stockings and wearing floral wreaths on their heads. Following an evening at the bar, the bar’s manager, Gail Right, announces that she wishes to see the narrator’s residence. Despite the narrator’s “frozen heart” (142), the narrator invites her in. Gail behaves seductively, and the narrator tells her that there is another woman, providing a short history of the relationship with Louise. The narrator and Gail share a bed; although they do not have sex, the narrator describes physical contact as the narrator’s hands run “over her padded flesh with all the enthusiasm of a second-hand sofa dealer” (144). The following morning, the narrator bikes to a phone booth to call Elgin, who says that Louise is recovering in Switzerland and does not wish to see the narrator.

The narrator brings Gail a cup of tea while Gail is in the bath, noting that she looks like “a prime cut of streaky bacon” (147). Aware that the narrator does not find her sexually attractive, Gail points out that she is a hard worker who would be a caring partner.

The narrator tries to learn more about Louise’s disease by spending time in the terminal ward of the local hospital; the narrator “[visits] patients, [listens] to their stories, [finds] ones who’d got well and [sits] by ones who died” (149). A doctor explains the exhausting hours of work and limited usefulness of current technologies. Subsequently, the narrator seeks solace by attending church, finding the juxtaposition of a plastic banner reading “Jesus Loves You” within the 13th-century chapel to be jarring. The narrator is disturbed by the church service, which lacks prayer books and uses tambourines, accordions, and guitars in lieu of the organ; the narrator leaves. Pondering the decision to leave Louise, purportedly for her own best interests, the narrator hears a voice saying, “You made a mistake” (153).

The narrator finds one of Louise’s hairs on a coat and realizes that no book on grief prepares the bereaved adequately for the shock of a physical reminder of the beloved. The narrator notes that, despite being mired in doubt and misery, the narrator has never considered suicide “as a solution to unhappiness” (155). The narrator thinks about “seeing” Louise, and other departed friends, in crowds on the street, and realizes that “to lose someone you love is to alter your life forever” (155). The narrator reaches the conclusion that, regardless of the prospective pain of loss, “love is worth it” (156).

The month of August brings depression, as opposed to the previous emotional reactions of having been “wild with despair and cushioned by shock” (156). The narrator feels that the narrator has made a mistake and has failed Louise by inappropriately deciding how she should live and die.

Following a “Country Western” night involving a male striptease dancer at the wine bar, an intoxicated Gail tells the narrator that the narrator “made the mistake” (158) of abandoning Louise. The narrator is shocked by Gail’s further implication that the narrator is a hero without a cause, a person who creates problems for the mere sake of solving them, and who may not have really loved Louise in the first place. She advises the narrator to find Louise, and the narrator travels to London the next day in an effort to do so. The narrator is now aware that rather than having been a “safe ship” (162) for Louise, the narrator has thrown her overboard.